The Heart Can't Express
by Brightbear
Summary: The firing squad is gathering on the far side of the courtyard, clearly trying to ignore the way that Victor is grinning at them  X-Men Origins: Wolverine .


Victor dreams of being executed in Vietnam. All these years later and it's still as amusing as the day it happened, and in the dream Victor snorts and laughs at his captors because it isn't worth getting angry over. He's already killed today and he's feeling lazy and sated. He shifts against the wooden pole he's tied to, enjoying the rough coarse rope looped around his wrists. He knows the rope's not enough to hold him, not if he really wanted to get away. There's nowhere to get away to, not in Vietnam where two white men would stand out whether or not there is a war on. He's hoping that when the military fails to kill them, he and Jimmy will be shipped stateside to serve time in prison. He won't bother trying to escape until they're back in the United States. Maybe it's time he and Jimmy headed back up into Canada, staying out of sight – at least until the next war starts and there's a new generation of soldiers that doesn't know them.

The firing squad is gathering on the far side of the courtyard, clearly trying to ignore the way that Victor is grinning at them. He knows several of them because they served in the same unit. They killed together, side by side in the jungle. Now, they look at Victor with righteous condemnation. Victor snapped the neck of a senior officer who was popular among the men. It has made them hungry for a little payback and they seem to be waiting for some kind of epiphany of shame and regret to strike Victor. They're going to be waiting for a while.

Victor looks sideways to grin at Jimmy, who's tied to his own pole. Jimmy isn't grinning, he's frowning. He looks unhappy and Victor can tell he's worrying about what will happen later.  
"Wake me up when it's over," chuckles Victor.  
Jimmy doesn't laugh and Victor rolls his eyes. Victor feels like he spends his whole life trying to cheer up his brother. It rarely works and he suspects that his brother clings to misery as if it would make him more normal, more human. Jimmy is a fool but Victor is used to it by now.

He turns back to face the courtyard. He knows getting shot will hurt but he thinks it will be worth it to see the looks on their executioners' faces. He will enjoy the moment they realise exactly what kind of animal they are dealing with and how feeble they are in comparison. He hopes they will have nightmares about the wild beast that posed as one of them for the rest of their lives.

The firing squad steps forward and there is no sympathy, only professionalism and straight-backed obedience. Victor feels a stirring in his gut and he turns again to grin at Jimmy but Jimmy doesn't look back and there's nothing to stop Victor's anger rising. Victor knows he will survive this - that it can't possibly kill either of them - but he's starting to realise that he is furious with these men for daring to think that they can control what the two brothers do. They have no right.

Despite Victor's intention to not care, he ends up snarling and roaring at the gun barrels. He's almost so lost in his own rage and the crack of gunfire that he doesn't hear that Jimmy's snarling defiance alongside him. Jimmy can no more stand to be passive than Victor.

The bullets hurt and Victor keeps snarling until the last has been fired. The world goes dark at the edges for a while until Victor finds himself blinking out the blood that's coating his eyes. It's his own blood, but the wounds it came from are now healed. At some point his legs have given way and he's kneeling on the dirt, his hands still tied around the pole behind him. The firing squad has begun to disperse and it's a few moments before one of them spots that Victor is grinning unrepentantly at them from a blood-streaked face.

The realisation spreads through the group slowly, and with comical timing they turn, one after the other, to look at the brothers in shock. Victor laughs at them, loving the delicious satisfaction of their growing horror. He turns to Jimmy, curious to see whether grim satisfaction will have won out over the brooding after such an adrenaline-surged moment.

He doesn't see what he expects. Jimmy is slumped against the pole, blood still dripping down his chest. The blood isn't unexpected but Victor can see the torn edges of flesh in Jimmy's chest where four bullets have ripped straight through. The wounds haven't healed. Jimmy's eyes are closed and he's not moving.

"Jimmy?" asks Victor, his laughter faltering.  
Jimmy doesn't answer and Victor wonders where the bullets hit. Shots to the head take longer to heal but the chest wounds normally would have started to close by now. Victor's wounds are almost gone entirely, though he can still feel a slight itching in his skin as the scars smooth themselves out.  
"Jimmy?" repeats Victor, the laughter slowly fading to anger.

A couple of soldiers from the firing squad are approaching Victor cautiously, unsure whether or not to fire again. Victor ignores them and lengthens his claws to slice through the rope that only held him because he allowed it. The squad all raise their rifles but Victor ignores them. They aren't important, not when his brother still hasn't moved.

Victor doesn't understand it. Their healing ability has never failed them before, and he's seen Jimmy take a cannonball to the chest and still get up. This shouldn't be happening. He's at Jimmy's side without remembering moving. He slices the ropes holding Jimmy's hands and catches Jimmy as he slumps the rest of the way to the ground.

He holds Jimmy against his chest, unable to look at anything but the bloody mess staining Jimmy's uniform shirt. The wounds still aren't healing, they're jagged and raw and bleeding and Victor has lost the ability to think of anything but the sickening thought that his little brother is finally dead. Victor shakes him and Jimmy's head lolls about bonelessly before flopping limply against Victor's shoulder.

Victor's clawed hands hold so tightly to Jimmy's body that his claws break the skin and more of Jimmy's blood trickles out to coat his fingers. Victor recognises the feeling in him as panic but it's never lasted so long before. It's always been as fleeting as the battlefield injuries his brother has shaken off on a regular basis for almost a century now. Victor roars out his terror and grief, torn between the twin urges to turn on the men who did this and to never let go of the only family he ever needed.

He wakes in his own tent, still roaring and shredding the bedding of his small cot before he remembers where he is. He can hear the faint shuffling of uncertain footsteps outside and smells John Wraith hovering outside the tent, unsure whether to come in and wake him from his nightmare. It is a nightmare only loosely based on a memory and it isn't hard to work out the reason for it. Jimmy is a year gone today, having turned his back on Victor and the life they once led together.

He knows that Jimmy is stubborn enough and miserable enough to never come back. There was a part of Jimmy that was always aloof, too willing to feel the shame their executioners seemed to expect. Jimmy was always like that and yet Victor still couldn't have foreseen that one day they would be divided.

Victor gets out of his bed and storms to the front of his tent, ducking under the flap and surprising Wraith with the suddenness of his appearance. Wraith takes several steps away from Victor, careful to give him space. There's no fear in Wraith's eyes, though, but a softening of patient concern. Wraith used that patience on Jimmy a lot and the fact that it worked on Jimmy just pisses Victor off more.

"What's the matter, John?" asks Victor, his tone light and mocking. "Something keeping you awake?"  
Wraith's eyes narrow but he says nothing. He's still not afraid of Victor. Victor wants a fight but he knows that if he takes a swipe at Wraith, the man will simply teleport away and be sympathetic from a distance.

So Victor knows if he wants a decent, proper fight then he'll have to get Wraith angry enough to start it and to keep it going. He contemplates the sympathetic expression of a man who Jimmy called friend before Victor's lips curl in the cruellest grin he can muster. He shows his fangs as he steps towards Wraith, holding his hands out to the sides to put the other man at ease. Wraith is suspicious but the lack of growling is apparently enough for him to allow Victor closer.

Wraith allows him so close that they're almost chest to chest. He doesn't know that Victor's grinning in anticipation for the fight that's to come. Victor raises his left hand and waves his clawed fingers. Wraith watches it suspiciously, too distracted to notice Victor's head moving until Victor is kissing him roughly and full on the lips. The angle isn't quite right and it's clumsy, with Victor putting a good portion of his body-weight behind it. Wraith's shock keeps him in place for a full two seconds longer than Victor expected before Wraith teleports away. Wraith is back almost instantly, a fist swinging at the back of Victor's head and striking hard enough to throw Victor off balance.

Victor grins as he throws himself into the distraction of the fight. He tells himself there was nothing he could have done to stop his brother leaving and, at times like these, he doesn't mind quite so much.

**The End**


End file.
